Emily and Jack top polls of most popular Irish baby names

Emily and Jack continued to be the most popular names given to babies born last year, while Fiadh and Hannah broke into the top five girl's names for the first time.

Figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that Emily retained the top spot for girls names for the ninth year in a row, followed by Grace, Fiadh, Sophie and Hannah. Jack was followed by James, Noah, Conor and Daniel as the first five most popular names for boys last year.

While John and Mary were top of the names given to tots 50 years earlier, last year saw just 209 new-borns named John — a little more than 7% of the number of boys given the name in 1969.

Jack has held the top spot as the most popular baby boys name since 2007, except for 2016, when James was the most popular choice.

Noah and Hannah were the most popular names given to baby boys and girls in Cork city, with Jack and Grace the most popular with parents in County Cork. In Kerry, Fiadh and Jack were the most popular names given to girls and boys.

Back in 1969, John, Patrick, Michael, James and Thomas were the names most favoured by parents of new-born baby boys. Not one of the most popular girls names for 2019 appeared in the top 100 chosen names in 1969.

Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Ann and Elizabeth were the most popular names for baby daughters in 1969, with 2,182 baby girls named Mary in that year. In 2019, there were 452 baby girls named Emily — 20.7% of the number of girls given the name Mary in 1969.

CSO statistician, Carol Anne Hennessy, said: "As is evident from the tables, over the years, girls are given a wider variety of names than boys with 4,814 girls’ names registered compared to 3,725 boys’ names."

"Odhrán with the síneadh fada, Eli, Ruairí and Joey were new entrants into the top 100 for boys in 2019. The boys’ names with most growth in popularity in terms of rank between 2018 and 2019 were Odhrán, with and without the síneadh fada, together with Eli, Kayden and Ruairí."

"There were two new entrants to the top 100 for girls: Doireann and Méabh (with síneadh fada). Alexandra, Heidi and Hollie were the girls’ names growing most in popularity with Alexandra moving up 25 places and Heidi and Hollie both moving 20 places in the rankings between 2018 and 2019."

"Some less popular names for boys included Teidí, Saul, Dexter and Ruán. Less popular girls’ names included Féile, Jorja, Kyrah and Constance."